#ryhsand

Elain jumped, the spatula nearly slipping from her grip. Rhysand was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, looking effortlessly elegant and thoroughly bewildered. Feyre stood just behind him, peering over his shoulder with wide, curious eyes.

"I — I was just craving chocolate," Elain said quickly, wiping her hands on her apron in a way she hoped looked casual. "So I thought I'd make some. For myself."

"That is a significant amount of chocolate for one person," Rhys observed, his violet gaze drifting pointedly across the three separate bowls of ganache crowding the counter.

Elain's heart gave a sharp kick against her ribs. She hadn't realized how much she'd made, hadn't noticed the scope of it until she was looking at it through someone else's eyes. "Well, I thought I might share some. If any of it turns out well."

"Ooh, let me try." Rhys was already stepping forward, dipping a finger into the darkest and glossiest of the three bowls before Elain could so much as raise a hand to stop him. He popped it into his mouth with the confidence of a male who had never once been disappointed by a dessert.

He froze. His entire face scrunched inward.

"Cauldron boil me," he coughed, reaching blindly for the counter behind him. "That is — intense." He winced, smacking his lips. "Isn't this too bitter?"

Heat flooded Elain's cheeks. She fiddled with the hem of her apron, tugging at a loose thread. "You don't like bitter chocolate?"

"Who likes chocolate that tastes like pure darkness and sorrow?" Rhys said, already lunging for a glass of water. He drained half of it and shuddered. "I think Azriel is the only person in this entire court who actually enjoys eating things that taste like the void."

Elain went completely still. The blush that had been a soft, manageable pink deepened to a vivid, traitorous crimson that spread from her cheeks down to her throat.

Feyre, who had been watching the exchange with growing comprehension, drove her elbow into Rhys's ribs with surgical precision. "Read the room, Rhys."

"Ow —" He rubbed his side, looking genuinely affronted. "What? I'm offering constructive criticism. Elain, you should add more sugar to this batch. Most of the Inner Circle possesses taste buds that function properly. They don't enjoy it this bitter."

Elain stared down at the bowl. The specific batch she had been painstakingly adjusting to exactly 85% cocoa, precisely the way she'd noticed the Shadowsinger preferred when he thought no one was paying attention.

Feyre shook her head, shooting her mate a look that could have withered a rosebush. "Elain, make your chocolate however you want. Don't listen to him. Don't worry about us."

"But —" Rhys started.

Feyre seized him by the ear and began hauling him bodily toward the hall. "Shut up. Come on."

"What do you mean, 'read the room'?" Rhys's voice faded down the corridor, growing more indignant with distance. "And why are you so violent today? I was helping —"

Elain let out a long, shaking breath she hadn't known she was holding.

Once the kitchen was quiet again she got back to work.

She whipped up a batch of milk chocolate studded with toasted hazelnuts, enough for the rest of the family. Something to throw them off the scent, to give them a plausible reason for the state of the kitchen. But for the dark batch, she moved with a different kind of care, slow, ritualistic, as though she were handling something sacred.

She poured the tempered chocolate into a mold she'd found in the back of the pantry, delicate, heart-shaped forms that had likely never been used. It felt silly, almost juvenile, pouring liquid chocolate into tiny hearts like a girl in a mortal village. But there was a certain magic to it that had nothing to do with the Cauldron or the powers it had forced upon her. She remembered about traditions from the mortal realm, where females poured everything they couldn't say aloud into chocolates, once a year, and offered them to the one who haunted their thoughts.

She let the molds set in the cold pantry, checking them every few minutes with the anxious patience of someone watching seeds sprout. When they were firm, she turned each one out carefully and dusted them with a whisper of gold luster, just enough to catch the light. They gleamed like tiny jewels, dark and beautiful and almost too perfect to eat.

She placed flawless hearts into a small black box she had lined with parchment. She tied it closed with a silk ribbon in a shade of deep, burnished cobalt that matched the color of his siphons. Finally, she wrote a small note. Her handwriting came out loopy and unsteady, her hand trembling just enough to make the letters wobble, but she didn't rewrite it. It felt more honest that way.

Then she waited.

She changed into a new dress a soft lilac chiffon that floated around her calves and made her feel, for a fleeting moment, beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with being Made. She pinned her hair up, leaving a few curling strands loose around her face. She sat in the family room, the little box tucked into her hands in her lap, waiting for a shadow to slip through the door.

Hours passed. The sun traced its slow arc over Velaris and began to dip behind the golden rooftops lining the Sidra, painting the river in shades of amber and rose.

No shadow came.

Rhysand strolled through the family room, a glass of wine dangling loosely from his fingers. He paused when he saw her. "Still here?" He tilted his head. "You look nice, by the way."

Elain stood, unable to hold the question back any longer. "Rhys? Do you know where Azriel is?"

Rhys paused mid-swirl, his wine catching the fading light. "Az? Probably up at the House of Wind. He doesn't have any missions right now, so I'd imagine he's doing what he does best… brooding in silence, staring at walls, contemplating the nature of shadows." He took a sip. "The usual. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just curious," Elain said, and even she could hear how thin her voice sounded. "I haven't seen him around in a while." She turned toward the window, watching the last of the gold bleed from the sky. "Maybe it doesn't matter. Is Valentine's Day something only the mortal world celebrates?"

Rhys's brow creased. "Valentine's... what?"

Feyre entered the room then, carrying a drowsy Nyx against her shoulder, his small wings tucked close to his back. "Did someone say Valentine's Day?"

Elain looked between the two of them. "Are you not going on a date tonight?"

"We didn't plan anything," Rhys said, glancing at Feyre with a look that was half-question, half-concern. "Should we have?"

"Oh!" Feyre's expression brightened, a wave of nostalgia softening her features. "It is Valentine's Day. I haven't thought about that in years." She shifted Nyx gently to her other hip, smoothing down his dark hair. "It's a mortal celebration."

"What is it?" Rhys asked. "Another excuse to eat?"

"Kind of," Feyre laughed, the sound quiet so as not to wake the baby. "It's a lovers' holiday. Couples exchange gifts. Flowers, letters, sweets. Or sometimes... a female makes chocolate for the male she has feelings for. The one she's courting, or the one she wishes would court her." Her smile turned knowing. "It's a confession day, in a way."

The room went very quiet.

Slowly, so slowly it was almost theatrical. Rhys turned his violet gaze toward Elain.

He looked at her carefully styled hair. He looked at the nervous way her fingers grabbed the box. He remembered the bitter chocolate, the three bowls of ganache, the blush that had consumed her entire face when he'd said Azriel's name.

"So," Rhys said, and Elain could hear the smirk before it even finished forming on his lips. "Who is your couple, then, Elain? Were those chocolates for us after all?"

"No," Elain squeaked, the word coming out an octave too high. "Absolutely not. It’s… it was just a craving. I told you already."

Rhys set his wine glass down on the side table. "Do you want me to give you a ride to the House of Wind?"

Elain blinked. "Would you... really?"

"Of course." He held out a hand. "Grab your things. Grab your... cravings." The corner of his mouth twitched, but his eyes were kind. "I'll bring you wherever you need to go."

Elain took his hand. Her fingers were cold; his were warm. "Thank you, Rhys," she whispered.

He winnowed them into the sky.

——

The House of Wind lived up to its name tonight. The air at this altitude was thin and sharp, carrying the bite of winter even as spring crept through the valleys below. Rhys landed lightly on the upper terrace, his boots barely making a sound against the stone.

"I hope you find whoever you're looking for," he said. The wind tore at his dark hair, but his voice was steady. He didn't offer to walk her inside.

"Thank you," Elain said again, clutching the little box so tightly she could feel the edges pressing grooves into her palms.

Rhys dipped his chin once, then vanished in a swirl of night and mist, leaving her alone on the vast, wind-swept balcony.

Elain stepped through the threshold, and the warmth of the house folded around her like an embrace a living thing that seemed to recognize her, seemed to welcome her. She checked the training ring first. Empty. The dining hall, cavernous and dark, the long table bare. She turned down a corridor lined with faelight sconces and walked toward the library, each step echoing against the stone, her heartbeat louder than all of them.

The library was hushed, the air thick with the scent of old parchment and the clean, cold bite of snow drifting in from a window left cracked open. Firelight from the hearth threw long, wavering shadows across the shelves.

And there sitting in a deep velvet armchair near the fire, bathed in amber light was Azriel.

He wasn't wearing his leathers. He was dressed in a soft black sweater, the sleeves pushed up just enough to reveal the scarred, beautiful hands that held a book open across his knee. His shadows drifted lazily around him like smoke from a dying candle, unhurried, content. But the moment Elain's foot crossed the threshold, they snapped to attention, curling upward and whispering against the stone floor as they reached toward her.

Azriel looked up. His hazel eyes widened.

"Elain?" His voice was rough, low, as though he hadn't spoken to anyone in hours. He was on his feet immediately, the book sliding forgotten onto the seat cushion. "What are you doing here? Is everything alright?" A pause, and then, almost helplessly: "Do you need... a book?"

Elain stood in the doorway with the box hidden behind her back and her heart trying to climb out through her throat. She felt suddenly, terribly shy the weight of this mortal tradition she was trying to carry into a world that had never heard of it pressing down on her shoulders.

"No," she said, shaking her head. She took a step closer to him. Then another. "I was looking for you."

Azriel went very still. His shadows curled tightly around his ankles, as though even they were holding their breath. "For me? Do you need me for something?"

Elain took one last breath. Just be brave, she told herself. You've survived the Cauldron. You can survive this.

She brought the box out from behind her back and held it toward him with both hands, the way she'd imagined it. Steady, open, offered.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Azriel."

He looked at the box. Then at her face. Then back at the box. He hesitated, his hands hovering in the space between them as though he wasn't entirely sure he was allowed to take it, as though the universe might change its mind if he reached too quickly. Slowly, carefully, he closed the distance. His fingers brushed against hers as he accepted the gift.

He opened the lid. The scent of rich, dark, bitter chocolate rose between them, and he saw them, perfect hearts, dusted in gold, gleaming in the firelight like something precious and impossible.

He looked at her. His expression was quiet, unreadable in the way that only Azriel's could be — layers upon layers of feeling locked behind a stillness that most people mistook for emptiness. But his eyes were soft. His eyes gave him away.

"Thank you, Elain," he said, and his voice was low and rough and full of something that sounded almost like wonder.

He paused. A tiny furrow appeared between his brows. "But... what is Valentine's Day?"

Elain laughed. A soft, breathless, slightly unsteady sound that seemed to release all the tension she'd been carrying since that morning, since she'd first set chocolate over a flame and dared to hope.

"I'll explain," she said, stepping closer to the fire. Closer to him. "But first you have to taste one. I made them bitter." She met his eyes. "Just for you."

A rare smile touched Azriel's lips, not the ghost of one, not the careful, restrained almost-smile he offered to the world, but something real and warm and entirely hers.

"I'm sure they're perfect.“